Han Dong snorted hearing the theory about the Xia Dynasty. He leaned his head against the energy wall of the cauldron, which felt solid. "Back to the past? Xinghe, if that is true, I would find my ancestors and tell them never to let their descendants play around in nightclubs in Guangzhou. But seriously, if we could go back to the past, wouldn't that ruin everything? Like..."
Han Dong's voice was cut off as Chu Xinghe and Han Dong were each thrown to the corners of the crystal altar circle inside the furnace. The shock came suddenly without any warning from the mechanism of the bronze cauldron. The sound of a loud impact that sounded like the collision of two mountains echoed through the thick metal walls. Chu Xinghe felt his shoulder hit the edge of the crystal so hard that his vision briefly went dark.
Han Dong landed face-down several meters from his original spot, groaning in pain while trying to hold his body steady to prevent further rolling. Li Wei, who had been snoring, immediately woke up with a short scream as his chubby body slid quickly into the legs of Zhao Lin, who was still unconscious. The impact jolted Zhao Lin awake, and he shouted in fear even though he did not yet truly understand what was happening.
"Xinghe! We hit something!" Li Wei shouted while clutching the warm crystal floor. His face was deathly pale, his eyes bulging as he looked around the wildly shaking room.
Chu Xinghe ignored the ache in his shoulder. He tried to stand up, but a second shock hit the cauldron from the side. This time the force was much greater. The transparent crystal floor showed a violent upheaval outside the energy corridor. The thick grey Sea of Primordial Chaos was no longer just rolling calmly. The waves struck the walls of the protective corridor with extreme speed.
"Hold on to whatever is near you!" Xinghe ordered with all his might. His voice was nearly drowned out by the roar of the waves from outside that began to be heard leaking in.
Xin Yan, Yun Hai, and the other girls woke up in a state of immense panic. They held onto each other's hands very tightly, huddling in the center of the crystal platform so as not to be thrown against the hard cauldron walls.
"Dong! Look outside!" Xinghe shouted toward Han Dong, who was holding onto a support pillar of the altar.
Han Dong looked down, staring straight at the transparent floor. His eyes widened. "Something hit our corridor! Xinghe, there are giant shadows behind that grey sea!"
Chu Xinghe crawled closer to the edge of the platform, observing the sight behind the energy wall. Out there, in the middle of the dense Sea of Primordial Chaos, several massive shadowy forms emerged. Those shadows moved very nimbly inside the grey sea, intentionally slamming their bodies into the energy corridor where the bronze cauldron was gliding. Every impact created a ripple of orange light that vibrated violently on the corridor walls.
"They are attacking the corridor!" Xinghe said. He realized that the energy protection created by the dead dragons and phoenixes was starting to fail.
A very sharp cracking sound was heard from the front. Through the glass walls of the cauldron, the five black dragons and four phoenixes could be seen struggling hard to maintain their momentum. The black phoenix wings flapped wildly, creating vortexes of black fire to ward off clumps of the Sea of Chaos that began to seep in through the corridor cracks. The giant black dragons moved their stiff bodies, pulling the iron chains with a force that made the bronze cauldron groan loudly.
"The cauldron is going to break!" Fang Hua shrieked while covering her ears. The sound of the grinding bronze was deafening.
"This furnace won't just break like that!" Xinghe replied, trying to calm her even though he himself felt doubtful. "But the energy corridor is failing! We're going to fall into that grey sea!"
A third shock came from below. The bronze cauldron was jerked upward suddenly, causing the eight teenagers inside to be lifted from the floor and fall back with a hard impact. Zhao Lin began to cry hysterically. He pounded the crystal floor with his palms.
"Why won't it stop?! Why don't we just die already instead of being tortured like this!" Zhao Lin screamed. His tears mixed with the dust swirling inside the cauldron room.
"Shut up, Zhao Lin! Save your energy!" Han Dong snapped. He crawled toward Xinghe. "Xinghe, what should we do? If this corridor breaches, we'll all be crushed to dust!"
Chu Xinghe stared at the summer disc in the center of the room. The golden-orange light from the sun symbol began to flicker unstable. "We can't do anything! This furnace is being forced off its path!"
The next collision felt like the strike of a giant hammer right on the cauldron's belly. Something enormous out there successfully tore through the corridor's energy layer. Through the opened hole, something grey from the Sea of Primordial Chaos sprayed into the corridor. It was not hot, but it was so heavy that it hindered the progress of the bronze cauldron.
The black dragons in front roared simultaneously. Their voices were like an ancient resonance that caused a long crack to appear on the crystal floor beneath Xinghe's feet. The black iron chains binding the dragons tightened so terrifyingly that several links emitted dark purple sparks.
The giant shadows outside the corridor began to reveal clearer forms. They were shaped like clumps of muscle without skin, with thousands of small holes across their bodies that sprayed grey smoke. These creatures had no eyes, but they moved with horrific precision to destroy the energy corridor.
The energy wall of the corridor in front of the bronze cauldron finally shattered completely. The orange light from the summer disc inside the cauldron exploded into blinding shards of light. Chu Xinghe felt his body being pulled from various directions as the bronze cauldron was thrown out from the safe trajectory of the corridor. The bronze cauldron fell into the Sea of Primordial Chaos.
Without the protection of the energy corridor, the shaking became a hundred times stronger. Chu Xinghe felt as if his insides were being stirred. He saw through the transparent walls that the nine giant animal corpses were being forcibly dragged by the extremely fierce currents of the grey sea. The bronze furnace spun uncontrollably inside the dense grey fluid. The eight teenagers inside were thrown here and there, hitting walls and crystals alternately.
The bronze cauldron continued to be struck from various directions by the waves of the Sea of Chaos. The sound of the impacts sounded like a series of non-stop explosions. Outside, the five black dragons and four phoenixes were still trying to pull the cauldron, but they had lost their direction. They only moved following the currents of the sea that dragged them deeper into the darkness.
Suddenly, a very loud tearing sound was heard from beneath the cauldron. The crystal floor that was previously transparent was suddenly covered by a very thick layer of bronze metal, yet the metal appeared to bend inward as if pressed by the weight of an infinite weight from the outside.
"The pressure is too great!" Han Dong shouted near Xinghe's ear. "The cauldron is going to be flattened!"
"It won't! This metal is no ordinary metal!" Xinghe shouted back. "Just wait! There must be an end to this sea!"
But that certainty felt very far away. Inside the stuffy, violently shaking darkness of the cauldron, the eight teenagers could only resign themselves. Zhao Lin was no longer screaming; he had passed out again because his head hit the crystal floor. Li Wei huddled while continuously calling his mother's name.
The final shock felt very different. It was like an extremely long and sickening friction. It felt as if the bronze cauldron were being forced through a very thick wall. The sound of the metal grinding was so loud that Chu Xinghe's ears began to bleed. CRACK! The energy wall of the corridor down there tore completely.
The bronze furnace along with the nine animal corpses was thrown out of the Sea of Primordial Chaos through an unstable dimensional rift. They fell in a free glide, piercing through a layer of sky filled with blood-red clouds and striking lightning, the eight teenagers inside the furnace still being tossed here and there without stopping.
The room inside the cauldron became very dark and chaotic. The crystal floor that had been a safe footing now tilted extremely. The eight teenagers rolled uncontrollably, colliding with one another. Chu Xinghe tried to grab onto anything, but the cauldron walls felt slippery. His right hand tightly gripped Li Wei's jacket as the chubby youth's body slid past him.
Han Dong held Yun Hai's body so the girl would not hit the bronze wall. Xin Yan and Fang Hua hugged each other tightly, their screams drowned out by the roar of the storm wind piercing from the outside. The layer of blood-red clouds out there suddenly tore open. The bronze cauldron pierced through the rift at full speed. The horrific sight of the red sky and lightning was immediately replaced.
A bright blue sky greeted them. Pure white clouds hung calmly in the distance. However, the land beneath the blue sky looked like a dream for Earth. The expanse of the land appeared as a vast plain, and the mountain ranges were so immense, featuring forests and rivers flowing far away, and the edge of the land was almost beyond the reach of the eyes.
The bronze cauldron glided down straight toward one of the giant mountains whose peak was covered in eternal snow. The five dead black dragons and four phoenixes had nothing to hold their fall. Their giant bodies were thrown downward. Chu Xinghe pulled his knees to his chest, protecting his head with both arms. The collision happened in the next second. The nine giant animal corpses struck the snowy mountain peak with a thudding sound that collapsed the ice layers.
The dragon-phoenix bodies were dragged against sharp rocks, crushing the mountain peak into large chunks of stone that scattered into the air. The bronze cauldron following behind them hit the side of the mountain peak at a very sharp angle. The impact was incredibly hard. The tightly closed metal base of the bronze cauldron suddenly burst open.
The crystal floor inside the cauldron shattered into pieces. The eight teenagers inside no longer had any footing. They were all thrown out through the wide-open cauldron hole. Chu Xinghe felt his body floating in the cold air. He saw the blue sky spinning wildly above him. The cold of the snow immediately stung his face as his body hit the mountain slope. The first impact on the snow layer cut off his breath instantly.
His body bounced and began to roll down the very steep snowy slope. Every rotation of his body struck protrusions of ice and rocks covered in thin snow. Xinghe could not stop his momentum. His vision was blurred by the white of the flying snow. He heard his friends' screams from various directions, but he could not see anyone.
Zhao Lin rolled not far to his right. The youth screamed hysterically every time his back hit a sharp rock. Li Wei was thrown toward a thick pile of snow, his body submerged for a moment before sliding down again due to the slope's incline. Han Dong tried to spread his arms and legs to find friction, but the speed of the fall was too high.
The snowy slope seemed to have no end. Chu Xinghe felt his shoulder, which had once healed, go numb again. His jacket was torn in many places. His skin was scratched by sharp ice. Suddenly the cold of the ice vanished again. The layer of white snow disappeared, replaced by muddy wet soil and dense green grass. They had passed the mountain's snow line.
Their fall speed did not decrease, but the terrain changed to become softer yet dirtier. Chu Xinghe rolled over wet mud. His face and clothes were immediately covered in brown soil. He hit the root of a large tree, bounced, and then fell through a row of thick, wide-leafed shrubs. The shrub branches broke as they held his body's momentum. The wide leaves functioned as natural cushions.
Xinghe's body finally stopped moving after falling into a pile of wet leaves and mud in the middle of the green slope. Groans of pain were heard from around him. Chu Xinghe lay on his back staring at the blue sky. His breath came in gasps. He spat out the mud that had entered his mouth. He forced himself to move. Chu Xinghe rose to a sitting position, wiping his dirty face to clear his vision.
"Xin Yan? Han Dong?" Xinghe called in a hoarse voice. A rustling sound was heard from the shrubs about five meters below his position. Han Dong emerged from behind a large leaf. The athlete's face was covered in scratches. He walked limping up the mud slope toward Xinghe.
"I'm alive," Han Dong said shortly. He pressed his ribs with his left hand. "I don't think any bones are broken, but it feels like I just got hit by a fully loaded truck."
On the other side, Li Wei crawled out from a mud puddle. His clothes were soaking wet with wet soil. He sobbed while checking all his limbs. "My teeth, I think some of my teeth are loose."
Fang Hua and Lin Mei were caught in the same cluster of shrubs. They both held onto the shrub stems so as not to slide further down. Xin Yan and Yun Hai lay close together on flat ground covered in green moss. Xin Yan immediately stood up and helped Yun Hai sit. Zhao Lin lay on his back not far from Li Wei's position. The youth stared at the sky with a blank look. He did not move at all for several minutes, making Han Dong worried and approach him. Han Dong gently kicked Zhao Lin's leg.